Victoria Police – Time To Sack Them All And Start Again

I have watched in horror as the Victorian Police scandal has emerged over the last week or so…

For anyone who doesn’t live in Victoria… just some quick background… seems that a male prostitute was murdered by a hit-man under the instruction of police officers. Then, senior police let an officer who was being investigated over the murder know about the (secret) investigation.

Now, those senior officers have lied to the internal inquiry into the events and two people (so far) have resigned. The head of the police union is in it up to his eye-balls (he was the one who passed the information on to the cop under investigation)…

So lets – for the moment – put aside the fact that the whole culture of our police force is sick, dysfunctional and broken. Forget that the whole police experience is “us against the public” and a “blue wall of silence” surrounds the whole force… let’s just look at the communications implications of this debacle.

In response to one of the resignations, our Chief Commissioner has gone to the media crying the she feels betrayed… excuse me, but what about the public these clowns are supposed to be serving?

You know, us poor schmoos who the cops pillory and abuse for driving at 63 km/h…

This response is so indicative of everything that is wrong with the police culture. They have forgotten that it is the public who has been wronged here. They have forgotten that we pay their salaries. They have forgotten that they are supposed to be above reproach – not be involved in having people killed and covering it up…

We deserve better.

“Marketing” rant

I know it’s been a while since I posted… I guess the world just has not been that interesting for a couple of weeks (Jewish New Year not withstanding).

Well, today kind of changed all of that.

I got a “marketing” call from a major telco trying to sell me their services. Only this one had an interesting twist – it was an automated recording asking me tohold on so they could make me a great offer!

Now I’m hard to shock, but this one took me a little by surprise.

Who are these idiots!?!?!?

Surely they have taken any hint of credibility away from their company providing anything other than the most mass market of commodities.

Yuk!

If I ever considered doing business with that company, it just went straight down the toilet.

If anyone thinks that this type of tactic is saving them money, it must be someone who is measured only on spending their budget as allocated form above, not someone who really cares about either their customer experience or their profit line.

If anyone with a small business is even vaguely considering using this kind of technology to “promote” their business… forget it! Stupid idea. Yuk.

Bible 2.0

Am I the only person in the world who is surprised to find out that people who are devout Christians DON’T know that the Old Testament is the original bible?

When I spoke to a member of the Hillsong Church last year who didn’t know that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the samegod I was surprised. She told me that she had bee all the way through their school system and was NEVER taught this.

I was in shock.

How is it possible that people who are supposed to be religious could be so willfully igorant?

At the time I put it down to an isolated incident.

Then today I heard that a very smart and very serious person – someone who is a member of the Australian Federal Parliament no less – thought that the Old Testament is a different translation of the same thing as the New Testament.

Really!

So here is my question… is it organised policy of Church (and Mosque) schools not to talk about other religions?

If so, that is deeply worrying. It must ferment separatism and partisan-ism. And keep us separate forever. Sounds like an long road to oblivion to me.

Service… anyone?

Wow… talk about the best of times and the worst or time. Unfortunately, there was a lot more worst than best.

What, you may well ask, am I going on about? A simple, old fashioned concept – service. I have actually thought a fair bit about this post because I don’t want to just sound like it is a general complaint session. Having said that, why have I had suh bd service from so many different suppliers in the last few days?

I’m going to start with the good news story. I had living proof that the theory of the happiest customer being one who has a problem solved well is true – at least for me. I had a windscreen wiper replaced and they did it wrong and the metal scratched the windscreen… annoying, but not life threatening.

So I took the car back to the place and the manager took one look at it and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. We will get the windscreen guy out here today and if e can’t fix it, he will replace it.”

By the end of the day, I had a new windscreen and Beaurepairs in Kings Way, Melbourne had a customer for life.

So simple. The guy acknowledged a problem, appologised, took ownership of providing a solution and was friendly about it all the way through.

The really sad thing is that this is a little excepional. Because there are three stories from very different companies of service that makes me never want to deal with the organisation again.

First, a photo place. I went in to get some copies done and got a five minute story about how late in the day it is and how they have other jobs waiting and blah blah blah… I actually asked the guy if taking my business was too hard…

Then I went into a newsagent and was looking through a couple of magazines and newspapers to see who the editors are and taking notes. I also had a magazine in my hand to buy. The shop-keeper (who I am pretty sure owns the business) actually said, “They are for sale, you know”….

And then yesterday at 7.09am I got a text message that my 9.30 flight was cancelled. OK, it happens and we (just) made it on to the 8.30. But not before the person at check-in got stroppy with us. And then at the end of the day when we wanted to come back a little earlier the operator says, “You can’t change this fair on the day of travel” and when asked if they could be a little flexible as they had changed our flight at no notice she replied, “Well, if that’s your attitude…”

Just because you stick a friendly looking kangaroo on your tail doesn’t mean you are fun to fly with!

So what is the simple take away from all of this? Really just one… when did your internal process become of interest to me? As a customer, it just isn’t.

As a customer, I just don’t care what internal problems or rules your business has. All I want is the outcome I am paying for delivered in a friendly way.

It is not that I am a bad person or don’t care bout you personally. It’s just that I have my own stuff to care about and I don’t want to be involved in the innards of your business. I just want my photos, or to look at some magazines, or to get home after a long day. Of to have a windscreen without a huge gouge in it.

When did companies forget that?

Strippers Anyone?

Wow, I really love living in Australia. I mean we must seriously have NO issues to worry about… the big issue of the day yesterday seems to be that the leader of the opposition got drink in New York and went to a strip club… apparently some people tohught this was a BAD thing.

I’m kind of impressed. I didn’t think the guy had that much personality.

Markets were crashing around us, Leona Helmsley died – proving that not only little people have heart attacks – and the biggest thing we were worried about was finding out if Kevin got a lap dance.

Isn’t it time we got just a little bit over it?

A Day Without Skype

How did we cope… Skype was down for hours last night and today… I had to revert to IM (ok, I use it anyway, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story).

I had a strange incident today. The dangers of working from home, I guess, but I got one of those unsolicited marketing call. You know, the kind you love… guy with an Indian accent pretenting to be your best friend and then telling you that he has an amazing deal for you. Talk about the opposite of personalised marketing!

I asked the guy if he used the service and (eventually, after several attempts) he claimed he did. Funny, didn’t think an Australian utility retailer would have customers in Bangalore, but he seemed to say they did.

The sad thing about his offer was that it was for an electricity retailer. Now in Victoria (where I live), the government sets prices for electricity and gas. The distributors do all the distribution and meter reading. All the poor retailer has to offer is the billing – certainly not my idea kind of service. Bugger all differentiation, the only thing they could offer me was a “price beat guarantee”. In other words, if I find someone who is even lower cost, they’ll match it or le me out of a 24 month contract.

Now is it just me or is this the sort of zero sum game price-based competition that economists have been warning about for years?

What I really want to know is why some smart entrepreneur hasn’t come up with a really blue-ocean type strategy to change this game. Surely it’s killing them all…

Oh well, it let me call up my current supplier and get a better deal out of them. So thanks anonymous Indian person, wherever you may be.

Laugh Out Loud

I really like to find something every day to laugh about. Today it was working with a wiki… not because that is inherently funny, but because I like the www alliteration.

Gee, I really am into geek-land already and this blog is only 3 lines old. Oh well, might as well set the theme early.

I heard today the Australian share market dropped about 5%… lucky I don’t own any shares and consider my superannuation (that’s like a 401-k for anyone in the US) to be the government stealing my money and never planning to give it back anyway.

Some bozo commentator said that statistically the drop of the last couple of days is a 1 in 10,000 year event. I guess he never read Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb… it’s a frigging black swan, that’s all. But for some reason people keep assuming that highly non-linear situations (like the stock market) are gaussian and hnce have predictable probabilities… wrong!

Anyway, I highly suggest getting onto Taleb… amazing ides and very refreshing. You can start at his Wikipedia entry here.

Enough non-sense, it’s midnight and I’m about to turn into a pumpkin. So, until next time… adieu